FILM

REVIEW: REAR WINDOW (1954) DIR ALFRED HITCHCOCK

CAST/CREW Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Produced by Alfred Hitchcock Screenplay by John Michael Hayes Story by Cornell Woolrich Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr Music by Franz Waxman Cinematography Robert Burks Editing by George Tomasini SYNOPSIS Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, and Thelma Ritter.

The film is considered by many filmgoers, critics and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's best. The film received four Academy Award nominations. [WIKIPEDIA]

Trapped indoors by a full-leg plaster cast, Jeff turns to watching his neighbours through the window. This common pastime is seen as voyeurism by most reviewers: CP for Time Out suggests what this relentless monomaniac witnesses is everyone's dirty linen: suicide, broken dreams, and cheap death. However, critic Roger Ebert describes the frustration: The herois trapped in a wheelchair, and we're trapped, too--trapped inside his point of view, inside his lack of freedom and his limited options. Jeff wants to be involved in something, and (being before soap operas) people watching gives him a touch of human contact that we all crave.

Jeff catches glimpses of peoples lives, and builds up a snapshot of personal lives. He does this in the same way as the movie is filmed, paralleling lives with footage. Ebert says Jeff sits in his wheelchair, holding a camera with a telephoto lens, and looks first here and then there, like a movie camera would. What he sees, we see. What conclusions he draws, we draw--all without words, because the pictures add up to a montage of suspicion. Reviewing Rear Window on release, New York Times writer Bosley Crowther (1954) drew interesting conclusions: What it has to say about people and human nature is superficial and glib. But it does expose many facets of the loneliness of city life and it tacitly demonstrates the impulse of morbid curiosity. ILLUSTRATIONS FIG 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rearwindowposter.jpg [accessed on 01/03/12] FIG 2 http://movieimage4.tripod.com/rearwindow/rear15.jpg [accessed on 01/03/2012] FIG 3 - http://movieimage4.tripod.com/rearwindow/rear24.jpg [accessed on 01/03/2012] REFERENCES Crowther, B (1954) Rear Window New York Times online at http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE6DD113EE53BBC4D53DF BE66838F649EDE [accessed on 01/03/2012] EBERT, R (2000) Rear Window http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000220/REVIE WS08/2200301/1023 [accessed on 01/03/2012] Pea, C (date unknown) Rear Window http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/76472/rear-window.html [accessed on 01/03/2012]